I
have an 11 year-old daughter
who just recently told me that
she had been repeatedly and
violently raped by her cousin
who is 16. At first she only
told of a single incident, but
now it has come out that it
had been going on since she
was 6 yrs old. It was reported
and he was only charged with
gross sexual imposition. All
he received for this was court
ordered counseling and probation.
To say the least I am appalled,
he at least should have served
one year for every year he took
from her. The worst of all this
was how other family members
reacted, they just act like
it wasn't such a big deal. The
one I was most shocked by is
my oldest daughter that is 28
and a pediatric nurse. Her reaction
was that he was only a kid.
I do have my daughter in counseling
but the wounds of all this are
very deep.

Also,
when he turns 18 his record
will be wiped clean and free
to rape again. One thing I failed
to also include is he also was
raping his younger sister. My
daughter's life is now forever
changed and he can just go on
with his like nothing has happened.
Where is the justice in that?

Thanks
for your note to FEMINIST.COM--I
certainly wish that you were
writing under better circumstances.
You note ended with an appropriate,
but certainly not an optimistic
question--"where is the justice"--unfortunately,
it's absent. Therefore, you
are left to make up for that
injustice and it seems like
you are taking all of the steps
to make that possible.

Your
daughter probably knows this
by now, but she is not alone.
An estimated 1-in-4 girls and
1-in-7 boys are sexually assaulted
before they reach the age of
18. To date, we have yet to
acknowledge that this is a prevalent
problem, and, therefore, don't
quite understand that acknowledging
it is the first step toward
curbing it. Often times it is
too hard for people to acknowledge
it, because that could mean
that 1.) they were sexually
asaulted or 2.) that they sexually
assaulted someone. Until this
happens the cycle of abuse will
continue. The way that cycle
most often repeats itself is
that for women who are abused--they
often continue to find themselves
in abusive relationships. For
men who are abused--they go
on to abuse. So what the cousin
did could be repeating something
that was done to him. Though
it sounds like his family might
be too deep in denial to explore
that posibility.

Therefore,
the most you can do is to protect
your daughter. To let her know
that she needs to be honest
about what happened in order
to not have it happen again.
Also, she needs to know that
she did nothing wrong. There
are several great books and
other resources on this topic--most
of which are included in the
V-Day
Resource Guide or our Violence
Against Women. section.
I hope that helps--and thanks
for being such a friend to your
daughter. She will be all the
better because of it. Good luck
to both of you